Though, like most men, he enjoyed a smutty story, yet I never heard him
say a really gross thing about any woman. And his language was always in
good English, with few curses and oaths in it.
* * * * *
Our new place was a bit of heaven to me. I procured a copy of Whitman's
_Leaves of Grass_, of Darwin's _Origin of Species_ and _Descent of Man_.
Laboriously I delved through these last two books, my knowledge of
elementary zoology helping me to the explication of their meaning.
The theory of evolution came as a natural thing to me. It seemed that I
knew it all, before,--as I did, because, in my own way, I had thought
out the problem of the growth of the varying forms of animal life,
exactly to the Darwinian conclusion.
Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ became my Bible.
* * * * *
It was at this time that I made the harrowing discovery that I had been
working evil on myself ... through an advertisement of a quack in a
daily paper.
And now I became an anchorite battling to save myself from the newly
discovered monstrosity of the flesh.... For several days I would be the
victor, but the thing I hugged to my bosom would finally win. Then would
follow a terror beyond comprehension, a horror of remorse and
degradation that human nature seemed too frail to bear. I grew thinner
still.
Pages:
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68